


Like, Power

by kattahj



Category: Clueless (1995)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Philosophy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-24
Updated: 2004-08-24
Packaged: 2017-11-08 13:21:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/443627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kattahj/pseuds/kattahj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tai has problems with her homework.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like, Power

Tai sat down on one of he benches in front of the cafeteria. She looked  
down on her debate assignment, where Mr. Hall had written in small,  
neat handwriting: "'All power tends to corrupt. Absolute power tends to  
corrupt absolutely.' Lord Acton." And below that, the awful word,  
"Discuss".

She groaned. Her grades had gone up a bit since she stopped smoking  
around Travis. Maybe she should quit the dope altogether. Her grades  
still weren't good enough for this. This was...

She tried splitting it into smaller pieces. "Power" she understood, and  
"absolutely." "Corrupt" – well, she'd heard the word. Josh had told her  
once that she shouldn't let Cher corrupt her, and she had pretended to  
know what he was talking about. At least she knew it was something bad.  
Bad influence, something like that.

Power tends to have a bad influence?

Hang on. She actually *got* that. It was like when she was all popular  
and she was so really mean to Travis even though he'd done nothing to  
deserve it. The surprise of actually getting what Mr. Hall was talking  
about made her crack into a surprised grin. But she could hardly write  
about how she'd been mean to Travis. Mr. Hall would say it was off  
topic. Cher could get away with that sort of thing, but despite all the  
things Tai had learned from her, that was still a mystery.

"Hey, Tai, what's up?" That was Cher now, taking a seat opposite her.  
Before Tai could get a word in, she continued, "Dionne and Murray are  
having a fight again, and I'm *so* not staying around for that, and in  
any case, Josh is picking me up in, like, ten minutes, so it's not like  
I'm gonna be *alone*, but I'd still rather sit with you. You know?"

"Yeah, okay," Tai said, moving her books aside a bit. "Have you seen  
the debate assignment?"

Cher opened her eyes wide in horror. "It's *awful*, isn't it? It's like  
that Haitian thing all over again. Mr. Hall must have marital problems,  
if you ask me. Probably time to assist him further – it worked so well  
last time. Anyway, I called Josh just now, and he has promised to help  
me out, so I'm not worried."

"Oh," Tai said, feeling a bit jealous. She hadn't done that in months –  
she was *way* over Josh – but sometimes it would be kind of nice to  
have a brainy boyfriend like that. "Do you think he'd help me too?"

"Sure!" Cher said, making a generous gesture. "Evil homework is, like,  
our common denominator, and we have to fight it together, you know what  
I'm saying?"

"...yes?" Tai offered, not entirely sure that she did, but she knew  
Cher was in a good mood, and that was a step in the right direction.

"Cool. Oh, there he is now!" Cher started waving cheerfully and  
half-ran towards the halting car. Tai followed with a bit less  
enthusiasm. Being around Josh and Cher when everyone was together was  
one thing, but the two of them plus her made her feel majorly weird.  
Not like the third wheel, exactly, more like she was doing something  
naughty. Like, dude, she'd had a *crush* on Josh once, and Cher was...  
Cher. And it was a lot easier to remember that the two of them were all  
couple-y when she was with Travis, and Murray and Dionne were there, so  
that they could *all* be all couple-y. Now, she felt a bit anxious as  
she stepped into the back seat.

Cher didn't seem to notice anything, though. "Hi," she said, giving  
Josh a quick kiss. "Can you help Tai with her homework too?"

"Sure," Josh said, smiling over his shoulder. "Hi, Tai. Do you guys  
have the same subject?"

"Yeah," she said nervously. "That whole power corrupts thing."

He nodded, pulling the car out. With his eyes on the road, he asked,  
"So what do you have so far?"

"Huh?"

"Any thoughts? Ideas?"

"Oh yeah," Cher said, throwing Tai a sympathetic grimace. "I forgot to  
tell you about that. Josh has this thing about everyone doing the  
*essential* parts of their homework on their own. It's a real drag."

"Well, otherwise it wouldn't be helping," he said, tugging her hair a  
little. "It would be *cheating*. And we can't have that, can we?"

"Of course not!" Cher said sunnily.

They kissed again. Tai looked out the window. There were all kinds of  
cool things by the roads in Beverly Hills that you could look at. Shops  
and stuff. She could look at them for a while.

"So," Josh said when he got his mouth to himself, "No thoughts at all?"

"No," she said. "Well, yes. But it's dumb."

"Hit me."

"Okay," she said, trying to put into words what she had thought before.  
"I figured it's like... well, a *bit* like... when I was so mean to  
Travis."

"You mean when you first became popular," Cher said, looking kind of  
interested.

Tai blushed. "Yeah." It disturbed her that Cher – fabulous, but totally  
self-involved Cher – had noticed. She must've been really bad.

"Okay," Josh said, sounding pretty doubtful. Tai shifted in her seat.  
"So what you're saying is... popularity is a sort of power?"

"I guess," she said. "Isn't it?"

"Oh, it is," he assured her. "So once you reached your position of  
power – became popular – you were mean to Travis. Why?"

"Uh... because he was a stoner?"

"No," Josh said, frowning, "Not what you were mean to him *about*, but  
the *reason* you were mean to him."

"I think she got that," Cher chimed in. "You've *been* to high school,  
right, Josh? You know the concept of in-crowds?"

Realization dawned on Josh's face. "And stoners aren't it."

"Yeah," Tai said in a very small voice.

"So, why would you..." Josh paused by a pedestrian crossing, letting  
two old women with 20-year-old faces walk by. "Let me rephrase that. If  
you *hadn't* been mean to him, what would have happened?"

She thought about that. She had changed it so many times in her head,  
said something nice to Travis so he wouldn't get that sad, confused  
puppy-dog look... and then what?

"They would have known I liked him," she said. "And maybe I wouldn't  
have been popular anymore."

She could see Cher glancing away in embarrassment. So she knew it was  
true. It just wasn't something you talked about.

"Okay, great!" Josh said, grinning so broadly Tai felt a treacherous  
flutter in her stomach. "You were afraid of losing power. So would you  
consider that a reason why power corrupts?"

"Yes?" she said, hoping that was the right answer.

"Okay. Make a note of it."

She dug through her bag, getting out a notebook, and after much more  
searching, a pen. While she was trying to fit the discussion down on  
words on a paper, Cher burst out, "Hey, there's Christian!"

Cher then proceeded to open the door while the car was still running  
and yell, "Christian!"

Josh flinched, which caused the car to swerve across the road, honking  
sounds coming from all around them.

"Jesus, Cher!" Tai said, catching her notebook from sliding down her  
lap. Her pen, however, rolled down and under the seat. "No wonder you  
never got your license."

That was another part of this whole popularity/power thing, she  
guessed. A couple of months ago, she could never have said shit like  
that to someone like Cher. Now she could, only she didn't really want  
to. Well, okay, so right *now* she wanted to, because Cher was acting  
like such a huge ass, but even now she felt ashamed of it.

And that was one thing she couldn't explain. They kept working together  
on the homework all through the night, and Josh was very helpful and it  
was totally cool that he took the time, seeing how he was in college  
and all, but she still couldn't get that question out: if popularity is  
power and power corrupts, how come you could *have* that power and not  
want to *use* it?

It was Christian she finally asked. He seemed like the safest person to  
turn to, seeing how she'd never been in love with him (thank God,  
falling for a gay guy would've been *so* humiliating, and she sure  
didn't envy Cher that experience).

"I'm not sure I follow," he said when she'd blurted out the question.

"Well, it's like... I could say stuff about people, and get away with  
it, but I don't. Why don't I?"

He took a soda can from the fridge and opened it, taking a swig before  
answering, "You might get a reputation of being a bitch."

That was true, but it didn't actually fly. She'd been along long enough  
to know that certain news would make it easy to forget the messenger.  
"Not if it was true stuff. Really secret true stuff."

"Like what?" he asked, jumping up to sit on the kitchen counter.

Like what Cher and Dionne do when they think no one is watching. She  
didn't say that. Maybe Christian knew, maybe it wasn't the big secret  
she thought it was, but she wasn't taking any chances. Instead, she  
rolled her eyes. "Like, I'm not telling *you*."

"Fair enough." He drank slowly from the soda can and then suggested,  
"Maybe you just want to be nice."

"I *do* want to be nice!" she said, tapping her fingers against the  
note book. "But if that whole power corrupts thing is true, wanting the  
power should matter more."

He shrugged. "Well, maybe it's not true, then."

She faltered at that. The idea of trying to prove the quote *wrong*  
seemed like an F waiting to happen. "You think?"

"Or," he amended, "it's because being nice is hard, and doing something  
hard is a kind of power in itself."

Whoa, now she had *two* options. She didn't want to have two options.  
"So which one is it?"

"How should I know?" he asked. "Both?"

Cher called his name from inside the living room, and he hopped off the  
counter, giving Tai an encouraging smile as he left. "You'll figure it  
out."

Trouble was, she wasn't so sure she *would*. She could just see Mr.  
Hall's expression if she tried to suggest that these two things were  
both right at once. And to make it all worse, she could think of a  
third option: if she told people about Dionne and Cher, then they  
wouldn't want to hang with her, and they'd never ever offer to let her  
join them.

That was probably the real reason she'd never tell on them – but she  
couldn't write *that* in her paper.

She sat down on a chair and moaned. She should never have let Josh  
start asking her those questions in the car. It had made her *think*,  
and now she didn't know how to put a stop to it. Things would be so  
much easier if she could just smoke some weed and write whatever came  
to mind. But she had to be loyal to Travis's struggle, and in any case  
popular girls didn't do that.

She'd just have to figure this out somehow.

 

***

 

Tai's heart was pounding like crazy, and at first she dared hardly look  
at the paper Mr. Hall had put down in front of her. Then she slowly  
lowered her eyes – and they widened at what they saw. She jerked her  
head up and stared at Travis across the room, trying to catch his eye.  
When he looked up, she mimed, *B!*

His forehead creased. *What?*

*I got a B!*

He shook his head, still not understanding.

"I got a B," she repeated out loud.

She could see the shock on his face as the penny dropped. "You got a B?"

"I got a B!" she confirmed, nodding enthusiastically.

"Holy shit!" Travis shouted, jumping up to stand on his chair. "She got  
a B!"

Mr. Hall stopped his tour around the room to deliver the papers. "Mr.  
Birkenstock, as happy as I am that you and Ms. Fraiser show such  
overwhelming appreciation for a good grade – and Ms. Fraiser, may I say  
I hope there will be many more – perhaps it would be best if you  
stepped off your chair."

Travis didn't just step off the chair, he practically leaped off it and  
into Tai's arms. "My girlfriend is a genius!"

She hugged him back. "Isn't it great?"

"I'm so proud of you!"

In the rush of happiness, she looked over his shoulder at Cher, who was  
giving her a wide grin. Oh, wow. She'd done more than make her  
boyfriend proud – she'd made her mentor proud as well. Tai Fraiser had  
officially bought a clue.


End file.
